Learn how to make a spider meatloaf, perfect for Halloween. Delicious pork and beef meatloaf with sausages shaped like a spider.
Have you ever searched Pinterest looking for Halloween food ideas? It is gross!!! For me, at least... I looked at the first few pictures and closed the tab... I was looking for Halloween meatloaf ideas and all I got were disgusting skull or zombie meatloaf, yucky Frankenstein feet meatloaf, and so on. Really, I could not even watch that...
But then I really wanted to make something special for the kids (last Halloween), so I thought about something else: a spider meatloaf. Enough Halloween, but harmless compared to a skull.
I am definitely not into grotesque looking food, so the whole Halloween weird food thing is not for me. Instead of bloody fingers cookies, I prefer pumpkin cookies and instead of brain muffins, I would rather go for cute owl cupcakes.
Very Harry Potter-like, you might have noticed that I have a thing for anything Harry Potter anyway, so when it comes to Halloween, I follow the Harry Potter direction instead of the scary, creepy one.
Ingredients
The recipe for the Halloween meatloaf is a rather standard and super tasty meatloaf recipe. The extra are the sausages or bratwurst, which are roasted in the oven together with the meatloaf.
Ground meat:
- I used a mixture of pork and beef ground meat.
- You can use only pork or only beef, but when making meatloaf and meatballs I almost always choose to combine the two sorts of ground meat.
- Why? I think that although beef is leaner and healthier than pork, the fattier pork meat makes any meatloaf or meatball juicier and tastier.
- That is a personal thing, if you don't eat pork, you can definitely leave it out and use only ground beef instead.
- And if you are not keen on beef, you can make this spider meatloaf a pure pork meatloaf.
Sausages:
- I use regular German pork sausages, also called Bratwurst. There are two kinds of Bratwurst: finely and coarsely ground.
- I almost always choose the coarsely-ground sausages, a personal preference, but finely-ground sausages are fine as well.
- You can actually choose any kind of sausages you like, the only thing you have to consider is that they should be long enough to really look like spider legs when arranged around the spider.
- And if you happen to like brats, learn how to cook Brats on the Stove or How to Cook Frozen Sausages as well.
You will also need the regular meatloaf ingredients like:
- White bread
- Eggs
- Onion
- Garlic
- Spices: sweet paprika, dried thyme, mustard, salt, and pepper
- 2 black olives for the eyes of the spider
How to make a spider meatloaf?
- Chop the onion finely and cook it until softer and golden. Set aside.
- While the onion cooks, soak the white bread chunks in cold water for about 2 minutes. Squeeze well and place into a bowl.
- Add the ground meat, lightly beaten eggs, grated garlic cloves, paprika powder, mustard, thyme, cooked onion, salt, and pepper.
- Mix well with the hand.
- Form the body of the spider using about ⅔ of the meat mixture.
- Wet your hands and press the ground meat into an oval. Place it on the baking tray.
- Use the rest of the mixture to form the head, as seen in the picture.
- Stick the olives into the spider's head as its eyes.
How to roast it?
- Bake the meatloaf in the preheated oven for 40 minutes.
- Take out of the oven and place the sausages on the tray as well. You don't have to arrange them as legs just yet.
- Roast the meatloaf and the sausages for 10 minutes.
- Flip the sausages on the other side and continue roasting for further 10 minutes or until everything is cooked through.
How to form the spider meatloaf?
- Carefully lift the body of the spider and place it on a very large serving platter.
- Lift the head and place it on the platter as well.
- Arrange the sausages around the spider's body to form the legs.
How to serve?
The best side must be mashed potatoes. You could try these garlic mashed potatoes, they are delicious!
Other great side dishes are pan-fried sweet potatoes, sweet potato gratin with parmesan, potato wedges, garlic smashed potatoes.
And when it comes to vegetables sides, I love to have some green beans either French style green beans, a classic green bean casserole or garlic green beans.
Mashed cauliflower, roasted Brussels sprouts or even a green salad with yogurt dressing make great sides as well.
More Harry Potter recipes
As mentioned above, this spider meatloaf was inspired by the Harry Potter books, the giant acromantula that was one of Hagrid's best friends. There are more Harry Potter recipes on the blog and I have actually cooked almost all the dishes mentioned in the books plus dozens of other recipes on the Harry Potter theme for another project that has nothing to do with the blog.
But here are some of the Harry Potter recipes that you can find on Where Is My Spoon:
Harry Potter's Treacle Tart
Harry Potter's Pumpkin Pasties
Ron's Chocolate Gateau
Hagrid's Book of Monsters
Hagrid's Rock Cakes
Slughorn's Pineapple Cake
Molly's Fruit Mince Pies
Halloween Spider Meatloaf – Pork and Beef Meatloaf
Ingredients
- 1 onion
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 120 g/ 4.2 oz white bread crust removed
- 800 g/ 1.7 lbs ground meat half pork, half beef
- 3 eggs
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 teaspoon sweet paprika powder
- 2 teaspoons medium mustard
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 to 1 ½ teaspoons fine sea salt to taste
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 8 long sausages See note
- 2 large black olives
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius/ 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly oil a baking tray.
- Chop the onion finely. Heat the oil and cook the onion until softer and golden. Set aside and let cool while you prepare the rest.
- Soak the white bread chunks in some water for a few minutes. Squeeze the bread well and place it into a bowl.
- Add the ground meat, lightly beaten eggs, grated garlic cloves, paprika powder, mustard, thyme, cooked onion, salt and pepper. Mix well with the hand. Form the body of the spider using about ⅔ of the meat mixture. Wet your hands and press the ground meat into an oval. Place it on the baking tray. Use the rest of the mixture to form the head of the spider, as seen in the picture. Stick the olives into the head of the spider as its eyes.
- Roast the “spider” for 40 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and place the sausages around the spider, you don't have to place them into the right position now.
- Continue roasting the spider and the sausages for about 20 minutes, turning the sausages one time in between, or until the sausages and the meatloaf are cooked through.
- Carefully lift the body of the spider and place it onto a large serving platter. Lift the head as well and place it on the platter in the right position. Arrange the sausages around the spider as its legs.
- Serve immediately as suggested above.
angiesrecipes says
That's cute and delicious!